


Blackbird

by rosecampion



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, Romance, X-file
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-01
Updated: 2005-04-01
Packaged: 2018-11-20 19:14:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11341605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecampion/pseuds/rosecampion
Summary: Reyes and Doggett solve a series of mysterious deaths with the help of Mulder, Scully and an ornithologist.





	Blackbird

Blackbird

### Blackbird

#### by Rose Campion

  


note- this story was originally intended for the 19th X-files Lyric wheel- the nursery rhyme wheel. I only just finished it. That's what, only two months late? 

Disclaimer- These characters don't belong to me, but they were getting dusty from lack of use. 

Warning- no beta, profuse advance apologies for possible errors. 

rating-NC-17 

* * *

The law firm of Rathskeller, Villareal and Glinka operated out of a ratty bungalow in a marginal neighborhood of an inner ring Chicago suburb. They were mere blocks from city limits. Part of the so-called "bungalow belt", but definitely on the fringe of it. 

Monica looked at the faded, weather-beaten sign that flapped from its post in the wind and couldn't help but thinking "Dewey, Chetham and Howe." In this case, Roy Rathskeller did bankruptcies, Esmeralda Villareal did cheap divorces and Jane Glinka did personal injury suits. Not the sort of place that Monica ever expected to find herself at, but then life on the X-Files had brought her to all manner of places that she'd never expected. 

John was about fifteen feet away, looking down the alley where the incidents had taken place. She'd already walked up and down. It was unremarkable. Crumbly concrete paving, weeds sprouting up between the bungalow and the concrete, now brown and stringy, dead from winter's icy breath. Just past the alley, the street cul-de-saced up against a concrete viaduct. Train tracks and more weeds on top of that. 

It had snowed perhaps an inch last night as they'd arrived and now an arctic front had bullied its way into town and was intent on proving that Chicago deserved its nickname, gusting and blowing. The city had salted heavily in anticipation of more snow than was received. The asphalt street was white with the salt, and if Monica even opened her mouth slightly, she could taste just a hint of salt in the air, blown around by those winds. John looked miserable, hunched into his overcoat, cheeks red with the cold. 

He turned to her and said, "You couldn't have dug up this case during May." 

"I didn't dig it up," Monica said. "An agent I used to work with in New Orleans is now posted up here. The local PD couldn't make heads or tails of it, so they asked for help from the Chicago Bureau. And so Agent Kosczyck begged me for help." 

The details had struck her immediately as soon as Al had faxed the case file over. Four deaths in the alley right next to this law firm. Severe, almost instant animal predation in all four cases to the point where the ME hadn't been able to determine actual cause of death, other than probably ruling out gunshot wounds, because none of the bones were shattered, just picked clean. Which fit with the fact that no one in the neighborhood had reported gunfire at the time. At least no one within a couple of blocks had. The time of death in all four cases had been during the night, the corpse discovered in the morning. This particular gritty little cul-de-sac was just off a main street and the houses and buildings were not residential, but occupied by marginal businesses like the bottom feeder law firm, an offset printers, a knife-sharpener and a number of empty store fronts. It seemed more a wonder that there were any businesses at all on this street. 

"So, should we go speak to Dewey, Cheathem and Howe here?" John asked, as if he could read her mind. 

The porch of the bungalow was busy slowly, but surely shearing itself off the main house, creating the impression that the whole house was about to bow, and then collapse on its face. 

"Not exactly the look of a prospering law practice," Monica said as she put a tentative foot onto the listing steps. They didn't move so she assumed they weren't about to fall off immediately. They reached the front door without incident. Monica rang the bell once, then a few times more when it didn't produce the desired result. 

From inside, she could hear a loud, male voice bellowing, "Rosita, Rosita! Get that already!" 

Finally, the door was opened by a big man in a cheap suit. He must have been the source of the voice. "I'm sorry. Please come it. Our secretary appears to have gone home early today," he said. 

From an open doorway just off the hallway that they were hustled into, a woman's voice said, "Since you don't pay her, she feels, quite rightly, that she doesn't have to work." 

The large man ignored the woman and said, "How can we help you Mr..." 

"Agent," John said. He pulled out his shield case and Monica did the same. "John Doggett. This is Special Agent Monica Reyes. FBI. The Cicero PD asked us to look into the series of mysterious deaths that took place in the alley next to your building." 

The man's face before had a certain kind of welcoming avariciousness, as if he more welcoming your wallet than you into the room, but you were included in the general welcome. Yes, he'd been hoping they were business. Now, that face was hard and closed off. It wasn't from secrets, Monica thought, but more as if the man were interested in money and only money, and they had turned out not to be a source of it. Monica found herself not so much disliking the man as pitying him for that particular kind of blindness. 

"Yes," he said. "Those misfortunate people. Of course, it goes without saying that you'll have our full cooperation. You should probably speak with Esre first. She's the first one in everyday. She discovered the bodies." 

"Fine, leave it to me, just like you always do," said the voice from the other room. Then a moment later, a large woman joined them in the hallway. "Esre Villareal," she said. 

She held a hand out as if she offering to shake and then thought better of it. There was the definite glistening of something syrupy on that hand. "Sorry," she said. "I'm just finally had a chance to have my breakfast." 

Villareal wasn't just a big woman. She was, frankly, quite fat. Two hundred and fifty pounds if she was an ounce. But she was tall and had found a well-fitted simple black suit that helped a bit to make her into more majestic than just grossly outsized. She had the long, glistening black curls that Monica had always looked at with envy too. 

"Let's go into the kitchen," Villareal said. "I can wash my hands and we can talk." 

They followed her down a short hallway to a kitchen. The practice had been built into the old house and they'd obviously not taken it out. In fact, it looked like it hadn't been disturbed since 1957, from the rounded white appliances to the pink and gray checkered linoleum floor. "Have a seat," Villareal said, motioning them to a pink and chrome dinette set. She went to the pink kitchen sink and started to run water. She didn't wash her hands just yet though. 

Instead, she grew silent as she looked out the window. "It was right there, all of them," she said. "The first one, I was doing just this. Washing my hands. I looked out and there....it was. It was unbelievable. The first one was horrific and it kept getting worse. I don't even know why I can still stand at this window and look out. Any normal person wouldn't be able to." 

* * *

Doggett reviewed the list of victims in his mind even as he listened to Villareal. The most recent victim found just yesterday- John Loren was a Cicero cop, probably the real reason the FBI had been called in. Now that one of their own had been killed, the Cicero police were finally taking action. Ivan Acosta was the only non-resident of Cicero who'd died in the attacks. No one could answer the question of what he'd been doing in Cicero. He'd lived in a far north suburb called Grayslake. Marlene George had been an EMT. And Ludmilla Mojoski had been a housecleaner. Nothing, as far as anyone could tell, linked them. None of them had any good reason to be in that alley at four in the morning on the dates when they were all killed. More worrying, local animal control couldn't pinpoint any kind of animal that would produce that kind of predation in so short of time. Doggett wanted to get Scully on the case, see if she could pinpoint an animal. Never mind that this kind of urban environment about the last place you'd expect wild animal attacks. It was, in short, weird. All the usual hallmarks of an X-file. Too bad Scully was off on the west coast working a case with Mulder. 

Some motion caught his eye, something passing outside past the window. He looked just in time to see last of a group of what seemed to be small black missiles speeding across the sky. Birds. Big black ones. 

Monica saw them too and startled. "Ravens," she said, standing up to get a better look. "A whole unkindness of them." 

"What?" Doggett asked. That didn't quite parse. 

"That's what a group of ravens is called," Monica supplied. "A murder of crows. An unkindness of ravens. A parliament of rooks. An exhalation of larks. A gaggle of geese." 

"Oh," he said. "You sure those weren't just crows?" 

"No, look. They're huge. Too big to be crows," Monica said. She pointed one that had settled onto a scrubby tree that grew weed-like into the concrete railway viaduct. It was huge. It flapped its wings once before settling balefully on its branch. The wingspan must have been nearly four feet, about the size of a hawk, not a crow. 

A short while later, a tiny woman appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. For all that she was dressed in a suit, she was like a disheveled child, waif-like, her jacket unbuttoned, revealing a lace camisole. Her dark hair fell into her face and she had a hank of it her hand, twisting it. She clutched a black overcoat. 

"I'm going home, Esre," she said. "I have to go home now." 

"What about your meeting with Roccio Vargas at three?" Villareal asked. 

"I don't think I can take on another case right now," said the woman. She hadn't yet looked up or acknowledged Doggett or Monica. "I have to go." 

"And you need to stay to talk to these people from the FBI. They're here about the murders in the alley," Villareal continued. It wasn't any use. The woman had been edging to the kitchen's other door, which led to stairs and ultimately to an exterior door to the back yard. She left both of the doors open in her hurry. Frigid gusts blasted into the kitchen, lowering its temperature an instant twenty degrees. 

"Damn that girl," Villareal said. "That was our third partner, Jane Glinka. These murders have her seriously freaked out. I'll give you her address so you can speak to her at home." 

"We'd appreciate that," Doggett said. Then, because no on else was doing it, he walked down the steps to close the door. He nearly tripped over a big box sitting by the door. It was filled with birds. Stuffed animal birds, ceramic birds. Glass statuettes of birds. And in particular, there was group of about two dozen of small ceramic bird statuettes with open mouths. They were pie venters, just like the one that his mom had when he was growing up. His mom had only ever had one. Not dozens. 

"Mind if I ask what this is?" Doggett asked, holding up on of the black painted statuettes. The beak of the bird was a vivid orange. It caught his attention only because of the flock that had just gone past the window. Black birds. 

"Jane used to collect birds. She displayed them in her office. Then one day, she boxed them all up and threw them out. That box must have been missed. She had boxes and boxes of them," Villareal said. 

"If you don't mind me saying, she seems a lot more disturbed by all this than you. Even though you're the one that found the bodies," Doggett said as he put the pie vent back onto the pile of them and walked up the stairs. 

"I just hold it together better than her in public," Villareal said. "I'm having my own freak outs. Look." 

She pulled a cabinet door open. Inside was nothing but empty containers. Honey containers mostly, those plastic bears, dozens of them. And crumpled up Wonderbread bags. 

"Can you think of any reason why there might be people dying in your alley?" Doggett asked. 

"No, none at all," Villareal said. "All jokes about how people hate lawyers aside, we provide valuable services in this neighborhood. I get women away from men who are beating them, or drinking the family money away. Roy helps families that have fallen prey to fast talk from finance companies about how easy it is to lower your payments or refinance for cash pay-outs. Or maybe they had the misfortune to get sick and didn't have insurance and now the hospital is suing them. There's not a lot of money in either situation. Jane is our big moneymaker really. One successfully resolved personal injury suite can float us for months. I don't know why someone would target us like this." 

"Why do you say target?" Monica asked. 

"That's what it feels like," Villareal said. She shivered, wrapping her arms around her, as if for warmth, even though it had already gotten back up to a normal temperature once the door had been shut. "I can't think of anything that more suited to draw the negative publicity that is exactly the sort of thing this practice does not need. I don't know how, or why, but from where I stand, it certainly looks like someone is out to ruin us." 

Doggett had not quite written all of the lawyers off his list, but it had been close, even before he'd seen the crime scene. What he was hearing confirmed this. This woman was a victim, not a suspect, as far as he was concerned. He'd keep a mind open for evidence against that conclusion of course. But at the very least, you had to figure that a pack of lawyers would have to be smarter than to kill right at their front door. 

His phone rang silently from where it hung on his belt, set on vibrate mode. He checked the number- Mulder's cell phone. Better take it. There might be something Mulder needed. 

"I'm going to look at the alley again," he said to Monica. "Can you finish up with Ms. Villareal?" 

He took the back way out, past the box of collected blackbirds. As soon as he was outdoors, he answered the still ringing phone. "Hey, Fox," he said. 

While they'd been inside, it had started to snow in earnest. Like some giant had dumped a whole pillow from the sky. The flakes were wet and heavy, melting as they hit his coat. The wind had picked up as well, smacking him in the face with flake after flake. 

"Hey, buddyboy," Mulder said. "Looks like I'm going to have to cancel our date for tomorrow night. The east coast is getting slammed right now with what looks might be feet of snow in places. I had been on my way home." 

"Where are you now?" Doggett asked. From the irritation in Mulder's voice, Doggett would have guessed just about anywhere the airport Mulder had intended to fly to. 

"Chicago. Midway Airport," Mulder complained. "They couldn't even have diverted us to O'Hare, where I'd be near a decent hotel." 

"You're kidding, right?" Doggett asked. 

"No, why would I?" 

"Do you have Dana with you?" Doggett asked. 

"She's busy calling her mother at the moment, but yes," Mulder said. 

"Can I borrow her for a while?" Doggett said. 

"I don't know. Should I be jealous?" Mulder asked. 

"Can the pair of you meet me at the Cicero police department. It's about six miles away from where you're at. I need her for an autopsy. I was going to have the corpse wrapped to go and sent back to Quantico. But if you two are here, maybe you can help us out. That is, if Kersh doesn't have you jumping on something else already." 

After Mulder's reinstatement, Kersh had the pair of them reporting directly to him. To keep close tabs on Mulder. Doggett sometimes teased Mulder about this. Kersh's errand boy, Doggett called him. Sometimes that was a little too close to the truth. 

"No," Mulder said. "We just finished up with something. We were on our way back to report to Kersh. What have you got? Something you can't handle?" 

"Mostly we need Dana for the autopsy," Doggett said. Damn if he was going to admit that there was some X-File he couldn't figure out at least as well as Mulder. They might have been lovers, but they were still rivals in some things. He struggled between wanting help on this thing and wanting to be the big man who didn't need it. 

"I'll just tagalong and hold her striker saw then," Mulder said. You could hear the smile in his voice. He was that glad to hear Doggett. "Or maybe I'll take a few days off and do nothing but watch cable and keep the bed warm for you." 

"Whatever trims your wick, guy," Doggett said. He really ought to be getting back to Monica and interviewing the lawyers. "So I'll see you in a while?" 

"As soon as I can rent a car," Mulder said. 

As he'd been talking, Doggett had been walking around the property, scanning the back yard for anything unusual, then heading out the back gate to the alley when he didn't find anything. He was walking up and down the alley, like he had earlier. This time, a dull glint caught his eyes, something shiny and black. It was stuck into some weeds and debris that grew into a huge diagonal crack in the concrete wall he'd been walking along. 

"Hello, what are you?" he asked, not remembering he still had Mulder on the line. 

"What?" 

"Sorry," Doggett said as he reached into his pocket for latex gloves. "I think I found something. I'm not sure." 

He'd forgotten about the raven. It'd remained glaring down balefully before, but now, as Doggett reached for the object, it dive-bombed him from the nearby tree, driving him off. 

A lesser bird Doggett might have driven off, once he'd gotten over the surprise. He tried. He attempted to brush the bird away. The raven had a wicked, fierce beak and actually drew blood from Doggett's hand, screaming all the while. His hand throbbing in pain, Doggett retreated, stopping just long enough to retrieve the cell phone from where he'd dropped it. 

"Sorry about that," Doggett said. "What can you tell me about ravens?" 

"Huh?" Mulder was caught off guard for once. One of the few times. "Why do you ask?" 

"I've got one right in front of me," Doggett said. "It's standing between me and what looks like a piece of evidence." 

"Are you sure it's not just a crow?" Mulder asked. "I don't think there are any ravens around Chicago. It's too far south." 

"Maybe a crow on some serious steroids," Doggett said. "This thing's huge. So, what do you know about ravens." 

Mulder, as always, could be counted on to be a veritable encyclopedia of things supernatural, just from the breadth of his studies and his lifelong immersion in it. He also could spit back out anything he'd read, making his knowledge of just about anything impressive. 

"Ravens are thought to be messengers of the supernatural. Also, harbingers of death. The Norse God Odin had a pair of ravens he sent out to deliver messages and report back on the state of the world. They were his eyes in a way. In some Native American cultures, it was the raven that stole fire and brought it to man. Did you know that in Alaska, ornithologists have tracked ravens and discovered that they live up to sixty miles outside town, but that they make the flight into town every day to eat at dumpsters?" 

"I've changed my mind," Doggett said. "No cable TV for you. Can you find out how far outside their natural range these ravens are and maybe give me some idea how they got here?" 

"I thought you said one raven," Mulder said. 

Doggett mentally counted to the ones he'd seen earlier. What had Monica called. Yeah. An unkindness of them. That was about the size of it. He tried to hold on to the phone and dig in his pocket for a tissue or anything to wipe off the blood still dripping from his hand. "I'd say there must be two dozen in the area." 

"That's unusual. I think they're normally a solitary bird. I don't think you find them in flocks," Mulder said. 

"An unkindness," Doggett corrected. At last he had dug out an unused fast food napkin from his coat pocket and wiped blood off from his skin, not actually touching the wound, because of the dubious cleanliness of the makeshift dressing. 

"That's right," Mulder said. "That's what a group of them is called. Did you know that ravens live in the Tower of London? And that if there are ever less than six ravens, the Tower and the British monarchy will fall to ruin. They have people whose sole job it is to care for the ravens." 

"That's interesting, but not really what I'm looking for," Doggett said. 

"I'll see what I can do," Mulder said. "I know an entomologist now working at the University of Chicago. Maybe she can give me a referral to an ornithologist." 

"That'd be great," Doggett said. "I'll see you soon." 

"Cicero police station?" Mulder said. 

"Yeah," Doggett said. "Hey. Looking forward to seeing you." 

"Ditto," Mulder said. 

They didn't usually sign off with an I love you, thought Doggett was starting to get to the point where he idly wished that they did. They didn't often say it at all. And again, Doggett was starting to get to the point where he wished they did. 

Doggett gingerly put his phone back into its belt clip- the same hand he had to use to do that was the same one he'd reached for the shiny object with. It wasn't bleeding profusely anymore, but it still screamed with pain. He just happened to glance back at the object, just to see if the bird had lost interest. It hadn't. It glared at him. If he'd been more of a suggestible type, he might have ascribed murderous intent to that glare. He took a step closer. It stood higher and flapped its wings. 

"Okay," he conceded, hardly believing that he was talking to a bird. More to the point, talking to a bird and thinking it understood him. "Point taken." 

Monica joined him in the alley, coming around from the front of the office. "I think we're done inside for now," she said. "I've got the address and phone number for Glinka. I already talked to Rathskeller. He doesn't know anything as far as I can tell." 

"None of them know anything except maybe Ms. Glinka," Doggett said. "These people are victims, not suspects." 

"I suppose we talk to Glinka next," Monica said. 

"Soon," Doggett said. "First we're going back to the station. We're meeting Mulder and Scully there." 

He explained about the blizzard on the east coast. Seemed like there was some overspill here too. The snow had picked up. It gathered fast and heavy on everything, coating it with lacy white. It was pretty, but Doggett had always thought that snow was best appreciated from inside, particularly when you didn't have any reason at all to go out in it. 

"Do you know how much we might get here?" Monica asked. 

"Weather report this morning said just an inch, but I think we're already at an inch and it doesn't look like it's stopping," Doggett said. "Before we go, I want to try something. That bird there is obstructing our investigation. I'm going to distract it. There's something. Looks like a bit of pottery in the weeds right under the bird." 

He couldn't have explained why he was so certain that the key piece of evidence was being protected by this raven. Logic said it was just a bird acting with mindless territorial instinct, with no kind of intention or intelligence. Logic also said it was probably just some garbage. But as he'd worked on the X-files, he'd learned and he'd noticed. In particular, he'd learned about himself that his instincts were more often right than not. And that feelings he'd always just attributed to "cop instincts" were very often more than that. The supernatural was a vast, unmarked territory that he didn't even want to admit was on the map, but he'd found with his work on the X-Files that he'd drifted into it without meaning to on more occasions than he could count, and more than that, he could find his way around it without blundering. As if he were returning home to a native country. Whatever. He needed to get that object. 

He detailed his plan to Monica, but she caught sight of his hand and the still bloody gash created by the bird. 

"I think we should get that cleaned up," she said. "And get an animal control officer to deal with the bird. Let's go to the police station." 

* * *

Not surprisingly, they couldn't get an animal control officer out to deal with the bird. She should have known. They had only one for the whole town, who was currently engaged in capturing a roaming pit bull. No one was going to pull him off of that to deal with a bird. 

John had gotten the gash cleaned up and bandaged. She shuddered to think about that. Birds had always kind of creeped her out, especially the big ones. Not so much that you could call it a phobia, but the sight of a large bird would send little frissons of fear to traipse up and down her spine. She could ignore them usually, but this time, they seemed far more serious and sinister. It was dread creeping slowly up her spine and staying there. She was not going to admit that she was scared though. Not to John. And not of a mere bird. 

A bird like that one could have seriously hurt John, taken out an eye or something. John was across the room, talking over the file with Fox Mulder. That was another cause of friction. Because it was so hard for her to think of Mulder as anything but rival. Their heads were close as they bent over the file together, as if any moment, they would lift their faces and kiss. They wouldn't, of course. But the intimacy ground on her. Nobody else in the room seemed to notice that John and Mulder were together in their own private world. She did her best to ignore the grinding. Nothing she could do could change the fact that he didn't love her, not that way. 

She turned away from the pair of them, looking to Dana who was just about ready to go do the autopsy. "Want me to go with you," she asked. "I don't think they need me." 

"Are you sure?" Dana asked. "The way I understand it, there's not much left, and what is left is kind of gristly." 

They shared a certain kind of bond, perhaps a bit deeper than friendship but not anything more. Monica had been there for the birth of Dana's child. And the men that each of them had thought of as "their" men had fallen in with each other. It created a kind of sympathy and understanding that Monica had never experienced with another woman before. She always used to think of herself as a man's kind of woman, and that other women were rivals. Dana had shown her otherwise. 

"I'll just turn my head away at the really bad bits," Monica said. She'd witnessed any number of autopsies before and mere gore wasn't anything that scared her. No, that raven hunkering over and guarding that funny bit of something was far more worrisome than any number of bodies. 

A short time later, they were at the morgue, in a big clinical room, all stainless steel and fluorescent light, with the grim smell of death only partially covered by formaldehyde and industrial strength cleaners. 

The body hadn't been autopsied yet. Apparently it had been decided that they'd wait for the FBI. They stared at the body, still covered in its bag. Monica had a pile of the autopsy results from the other deaths. She was going to go over them again while Dana worked this one. 

Dana took a breath and then unzipped the body bag, then nodded to their assistant, the diener. They arranged the body so that Dana could get to work. Dana normally worked without assistance, but often she was just going over a corpse that was already cut, all the hard work done, and only the intellectual fine combing to be done. 

"What's this?" Dana said. She immediately lifted three black feathers out of what was left of the scalp. Crusts of blood clung to blond hair. This body had no face, just the death's head of a skull staring out with empty sockets from under the ruin of the scalp. 

Monica felt her feet start to go out from under her, her knees turning to water. Again, the dread creeping higher until it settled around her shoulder blades. She found a stool and sat down hard before she fell down. She turned her back on the body and concentrated on the files in front of her. She could lose the reality of it in the clinical detail. 

"Who killed these people, Dana?" Monica asked after a long time. After she'd been unable to concentrate on the files because of the thoughts of skulls and feathers floating around them. 

"Not who. What," Dana said. "The cause of death here is massive blood loss and shock due to lacerations and blunt trauma. What physical evidence I have points to an avian cause." 

"You mean..." Monica started. 

"This man was pecked, though it might be more accurate to say was mauled to death by a number of large birds," Dana said. She picked up a black feather. "I'd want to have this identified by an ornithologist, but my first guess would be crow, maybe raven. Some large black bird." 

* * *

In spite of the inappropriateness of it, Mulder ached to lift his face up to John's, to close the short distance between them and melt into the intense passion that could erupt between them at any moment. John, more than any other person ever had, caused him to lose control. In their earliest days, he'd diverted it into violence, anger, shoving, being shoved. Then had come the kiss that changed everything. Maybe it was the refinery fire that had really changed things. Afterwards, John had come over to his apartment. Supposedly with the intention of apologizing, but with perhaps subconscious intent of seduction. There had been harsh words on both sides, not shouting any longer at least. But then suddenly, John was kissing him, and it was as if every flare that had come between them was just a kindling of a larger fire. 

Mulder gathered his thoughts, steered them firmly towards the problem at hand. "There has to be some kind of connections between the victims," he said. "I see a possible one between the police officer and the EMT, but not the other two. We've got an EMT, a cop and a maid. What did Ivan Acosta do again?" 

John flipped through a file. "He was in insurance. Bingo. We've got an accident connecting them. Loren and George responded. Acosta was involved because of the insurance maybe. And Jane Glinka, personal injury attorney, must have made the mistake of taking it on as a case, possibly after Acosta denied the claim. Okay, this, I can get my mind around. This is just cop work from now on." 

Ah, yes, cop work. Even though Mulder had been mystified but gratified to see his lover delve deeper into his own sensitivities to the supernatural, he recognized how much more comfortable John was when he had the familiar territory of "cop work" to fall back on. It was like watching a young child start to explore its world. Only John was even more cautious. And far more glad to return to the familiar. 

"So, we find an accident that connects all of them and follow it back to the source," Mulder said. 

"Did you ever find your ornithologist?" Doggett asked. 

Mulder was beginning to regret offering that. Because as he thought about it, Bambi was certainly going to want to see him. She was like that. So blissfully happy that she was unaware of the discomfort that she caused others. And Mulder knew that he couldn't help but act weird around her, because of how much he'd been attracted to her once. There was certain amount of humiliation surrounding his thoughts about her, that would never go away, and John would pick up on that for sure. And then there was the whole name issue. Scully had really given him the business about that once. John would surely find it a matter for amusement. 

"No, I haven't had a chance yet," Mulder said. 

"Why don't you go do that? I'm going to talk to some people about digging up accident reports," John said. 

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe Bambi would be too busy to want to see him. He picked up his phone and dialed her office number, pulling it out of his ample stores of memory. 

An unfamiliar female voice answered the phone. 

"Hello, is Bambi Berenbaum there?" Mulder asked, wondering if maybe it had been so long that Bambi had moved on and someone else was now using the office. 

"No," the woman said. "She's been on maternity leave for a while now. I've been using her office. I can give you the main departmental number and they can get a message to her." 

Ah. Reprieve from Bambi. And maybe this person could help him. "Actually, this is Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI. I had worked with Bambi on a case before and I was just hoping she could give a referral for a professional consult. I thought it would be easier than trying to go through channels." 

She made a little noise of disinterest. Not quite a dismissive snort, but close. A small exasperated breath out. "We don't do forensic entomology here," she said. "And I thought you FBI types had people on staff for that." 

He could understand her lack of interest in that particular subject. Scully had once gone off to bug camp at the Body Farm in Tennessee and for weeks afterwards couldn't stop talking about stages of larval development and pupae. It was distasteful at best. As repellent as it was useful. 

"No," Mulder explained. "I'm looking for an ornithologist. We have a bird problem. I was hoping she knew someone. But I can just call the main switchboard." 

"What sort of bird problem?" she asked, only slightly more interested. 

"Positive identification," Mulder said. "We think we have several ravens outside of their natural range." 

"Really?" the woman asked. "Joe has got to hear about this. Sorry. My boyfriend's buddy Joe, is an adjunct here in ornithology. He studies the urban crow. It sounds like your problem is right up the corvidiae aisle." 

Mulder scribbled down the number she gave him. It was easy enough to call and set up an appointment. The woman must have called her boyfriend's buddy right away, because he expected Mulder's call, and as she had predicted, he was more than eager to come out and take a look at their black birds. 

* * *

Mulder had rounded up an ornithologist from the University of Chicago. The ornithologist was a small, sharp man, the kind of guy who packs 6'2" of personality into 5'3" of body, with a hook nose that put Monica in mind of a bird's beak. He was already losing his hair, but you never noticed, nor did Monica even notice how short the man was until she got right up to him and couldn't help but observe that she towered over him and would have even if she wasn't wearing heels. He reminded her of Frohike, even though he was much younger and almost approaching handsome. 

Right now, he was hunched over a table, peering at all the different batches of feathers that had been collected from the four victims. The man examined each feather carefully before sorting it into a pile, while keeping each victim's evidence together. She watched closely, enjoyed watching anyone in this kind of deep concentration. It almost made him beautiful to her. 

"Yes," he pronounced while looking at one big, black feather. "You do have a raven here. But I've also found crow, starling, grackle, red-wing blackbird and cowbird feathers here. Mostly raven though." 

One of the detectives who'd been working the cases originally was in the room. She was a sour and stringy woman with her hair shellacked into an unattractive poof. It looked like it'd been frozen in time somewhere in 1989. The fact that she kept a great big wad of chewing gum in her cheek at all times didn't help. She would chaw on it only occasionally. For some reason, she and John had an instant antipathy towards each other. She all but snarled when John walked towards her. He'd already made the mistake with her earlier of asking if John Loren was any relation to Betty Loren-Maltese. She'd bristled visibly at that. Monica would have thought John would know better than to bring up memories of federal probes that were not too far in the past. John had just claimed he was trying to find any connections. 

John ignored the woman's obvious ire and asked, "Why didn't you collect any feathers from the crime scene?" 

"What?" she asked. "You can't pick up every tiny bit of natural debris from an open scene like that. What is this about birds anyway? We called youse guys from the Bureau to find us a killer. A human killer. You think the people of this city are going to rest easy knowing what happened is some kind of Hitchcock movie? And our budget don't have money for consultations with no professors." 

"And we're finding your human killer," John said. Monica was surprised to see him act so openly hostile. "I think these birds are just the weapon. Look, you have a gun, you call in a ballistics expert. You have birds, you call an ornithologist. What about those accident reports I needed?" 

"I got the records clerk working on it," she said. "I ain't got time for this nonsense." 

She stalked away. 

Monica snickered silently. Perhaps she shouldn't be amused by the woman's honest ire. But somehow it was just too typical of their work. John, despite the fact that he knew from the inside, just how things worked around a police station, would piss someone off. Just like Fox Mulder always used to. Just like John said that he didn't. It was just funny how much they really were alike, at a deep level. Yes, she could at least intellectually appreciate how much they belonged together. Even as she wanted to kill Fox Mulder at another. 

"I think I'm going to go see if that raven has shifted," John said. 

Suddenly, nothing was funny to Monica any more. 

"I have to see this raven," the ornithologist said. "I've got my gear in my car." 

* * *

The ornithologist's gear was a blow gun with tranquilizer darts, a big net, heavy leather gloves and banding equipment. "I'm studying the effects of West Nile on the urban crow population. I'm trying to band as many crows as possible for an accurate population count. I can't imagine what could have pulled ravens from this far out of their natural range. I'll band them as well and get in touch with some of my colleagues in raven research. Maybe we can figure out where they're from and how far off the map they are." 

They were standing on the street just a little ways down from the alley. The ornithologist lugged his own equipment, declining Doggett's offer of help. Apparently, he didn't rate his own grad assistant and was used to it. 

Monica had jabbered a bit when he'd announced that he was going back to the bird. Then she'd found an excuse, a feeble one, for something that Dana needed help with. It wasn't the excuse that had him nod in agreement, but the look in her eye. The first time he'd ever seen that particular expression on her face, but one that was familiar enough. That wide eyed look was fear. She'd been scared. So, he let her go off with Dana and he'd gone alone with Joe, the ornithologist. 

It was getting on to night. What feeble light there'd been earlier was fading. There was hardly a sunset, but the light was just sucked out of the world, the sky turning from white to pewter to gunmetal. The snow hadn't stopped, but it had slowed, now putting Doggett in mind of dandruff from a giant in the sky. If the alley had seemed scabrous and the neighborhood ramshackle earlier, it was approaching slum now, a dangerous place. One that made little hairs prick up on the back of Doggett's neck. 

"That sure is a raven," Joe said as they approached the grubby alley. He set down his gear and started to prepare his dart gun. "Now, what's a right big birdy bastard like you doing down here?" 

Doggett suddenly realized that it wasn't just the one raven, but dozens of them, and maybe hundreds of other birds were close by. They perched on the bare scrubby trees all around. They made a susurrus of noise distinctly heard over traffic and all the other sounds of human habitation. More of them were arriving by the moment, fluttering down to find perches on power lines and branches. Doggett was able to pick out individual caws and twittering, but mostly it was just a stew of sound. 

Joe looked around in disbelief. "What's drawing them here?" he asked. "It's like a bloody convention. You'd never see this normally. Not so many different species." 

And the whole unkindness had perched in the tree closest to the crack where Doggett had seen the object earlier. You could begin to see the horror of that Poe poem. 

Joe asked, apropos of nothing, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" 

"What?" 

"Oh, sorry. Stupid joke," Joe said. "I'm just nervous suddenly. I couldn't tell you why." 

With that, they walked closer to where Doggett directed. The birds didn't move, and Doggett suddenly felt like he'd been surrounded by the enemy. They were all around him. High up in the air. They had the drop on him. Joe stopped and raised the air gun to his mouth. With a quick puff, the tiny dart flew through the air. Seconds later, Joe was scooping up a mass of black from the air with the net. 

The birds didn't fly off. They roused, their wings flapping, the crows cawing and some birds even screeching. Doggett took his chance, reaching up to the crack for the object. He touched it, felt its smooth, cold surface before a black monster flung itself at his face. He released the object and flung his arms around his face, warding off his attacker. Attackers. He was dive-bombed again and again by different birds, all screaming their fury. There were searingly painful hits to his face. Thinking just barely clearly enough, he sheltered his eyes with his right arm, continuing to flail with his left while backing away, then, when he was clear, running back to the car. He paused long enough to see if the ornithologist had made it clear. Yes. The man was running. He'd dropped most of his gear, but he still clenched a net in his hand and in the net, a very still, big, black bird. 

"Jesus," Joe said. "That was like being in a Hitchcock movie. None of my colleagues are going to believe this." 

His hands and arms had been protected by the gauntlet style gloves, but underneath his stocking cap, a rivulet of blood ran out. Also, another rivulet ran from near his eye. All told, it looked like the birds had gotten in a good five or six gashes. "Hey, look, it's already banded." 

"So?" Doggett asked. He was thinking that Joe looked like he was about to faint. He wasn't going to say anything though. He got the feeling the other man might take it as an impugning of his masculinity. Still, Doggett was figuring on how best to catch the short, stocky man when he fall. Maybe he wouldn't, but Doggett would bet dollars to donuts that he would. Still, despite loosing a pretty good amount of blood and his face being drained to white, the man seemed exhilarated, like a kid at a carnival. 

"It's banded. That means someone is studying it already. And I can probably find out who. He'd probably be real interested to find out how far this bird is from home. As soon as I can slap a few Band-Aids on, I'll make some calls to colleagues." 

Once back at their car, Joe examined the bird carefully. He directed Doggett to hold a flashlight so he could see. He pulled out the wings to look at flight feathers. He felt along the breast bone. 

"The poor bugger must be starving," Joe pronounced. "Feel this. His breastbone is sticking out like the keel of a racing yacht. It's not that there's not enough food. This bad boy'll eat garbage as well as carrion, and he can easily frighten away any gull or pigeon. Or crow even." 

Doggett declined to run his fingers down the breast of the raven. He did add, "It's like there's something that's compelling them to stay in this vicinity. That probably cuts into their time for hunting up their next meal." 

By then, the bird was starting to stir, thrashing around slightly in Joe's hands. Joe released the bird in the direction of the tree. Then he raised a hand up to his still bleeding cheek. "Wow. I haven't been gotten this good since I used to work with rescued falcons," he said. He dabbed at his cheek again. "Maybe you could take me to the emergency room. I think this'll require more than a Band-Aid." 

He didn't faint, by God. But he did turn even paler white and sit down hard on the car seat. It took a few hours for Doggett to get Joe squared away, and make sure he was going to be okay and that someone was coming for him. By then, it was nine thirty and some hours since he'd been in contact with Monica and the rest. 

First things first though. He called Mulder. 

"Hey buddyboy," Mulder said. "We've got your accident." 

"You were able to find it that fast in city records?" Doggett asked. He'd have thought that they wouldn't find it until tomorrow. 

"No," Mulder said. "The clerks close up shop and go home at four thirty. No way were they going to stay late, just for us. So I decided to go about it from the other end. I called the insurance company that Ivan Acosta worked for. They have everything computerized and cross referenced. They had my answer in a few minutes. There were a couple of accidents actually. One of those multiple car things, but considered to be separate accidents for insurance purposes. We should have dinner and I'll tell you call about it. How are things going from your end?" 

"Peachy," Doggett said. "Joe and I got mauled by ravens. I'm okay, but Joe'll have a hundred stitches." 

"Have you had dinner yet?" Mulder asked. 

"No time. Have you?" 

"No. Monica and Scully went already though. They just called it a night and went back to the hotel." 

Doggett glanced at the watch on his right wrist again. Past nine thirty, edging onto quarter `til. Maybe they had a point. He was feeling kind of wrung out himself. In need of some R and R and several hundred good solid calories in his belly. "Sounds like a good idea," he said. "Were you able to get a room for yourself?" 

"Right across the hall from you," Mulder said. Something made Doggett think that that room wasn't going to get used much. Or maybe it was his own room that wasn't going to get used. Either way, there'd only be one bed to make in the morning. 

* * *

Over dinner, ribs for himself and a thick steak for John, Mulder ran down the insurance claim information he'd found, but with only half attention. The other half contemplated the mystery of John Doggett and wondered how he'd ever find the key that would fully unlock the man's heart. Not that Mulder expected romantic outpourings or even holding hands at the movies. But there was always a reserve there that seemed at odds with the romantic and passionate nature that Mulder sometimes glimpsed underneath the surface. It seemed to Mulder that in his hidden heart, John thought of himself like a knight in the stories- rescuer of fair maidens, slayer of dragons and other monsters. Perhaps that was at odds with the reality that he preferred the other knights and felt brotherly at best towards the fair maidens. Other than that, Mulder thought the comparison apt. Mulder could think of no other man to whom he could comfortably attach the label "hero". And not just for the simple bravery that came as naturally to the man as breathing, but for the determination and honor, which were not painted on the surface but part and parcel of him, soul deep. Just the thought of it, the sudden upwelling of emotion, caused him to stumble over his words as he continued to describe the insurance situation. 

"What was that?" John asked, setting his knife and fork down with a change of expression. No longer was his look of strong but detached and professional interest, but of that certain intense focus that meant his whole attention was on you. He had noticed Mulder's emotional state and his curiosity had been awoken. Mulder was suddenly certain that the whole time they had been talking, they'd actually been have two completely different discussions, one vocal, on the matter at hand. The other could only have been heard by the both of them, totally non-verbal. 

"I said that the insurance people denied the other claim and that was the substance of the liability case that our attorney Jane Glinka fought," Mulder said. 

"No, I heard that part," Doggett said. A confirmation that they were, indeed, having this second, silent conversation. He might as well as come out and say, no, the part that you didn't say. 

"You know, I think we're both exhausted," Mulder said, even as he wondered if this was what John wanted to hear. So often, John wanted to work a case around the clock until it was solved. With luck, he hadn't reached that level of involvement yet. "I just finished with my case out in Oregon this morning. You must have taken the red eye out from DC last night. Maybe we should hit the hotel." 

"That's not a bad idea," John said. 

Yes, it had been the right thing to say and he hoped John had heard the unspoken invitation, not just to sleep, but to lovemaking. Just then, the waitress came up, noticing their mostly empty plates. 

"You boys want anything else? Coffee? Dessert?" 

"No," John said immediately and firmly. "We have to get going." 

Yes, the invitation had been heard, understood and accepted. Probably even anticipated. Mulder just about jumped out of his seat. 

* * *

The instant the hotel room door shut, Doggett could be a different man. His dignity could be shed along with his tie and coat. Doggett struggled to remove as much of his clothes as quickly as possible. Fox, in contrast was still slipping his tie from his collar as Doggett was hopping around, removing his shoes with his pants around his ankles. He'd remembered it was going to be that much more difficult to get the pants off with his shoes on only after he had them most of the way off. 

"Someone's an eager beaver tonight," Fox remarked. He was fishing for something, that was sure. Perhaps it was just for an affirmation that this was wanted. 

"You bet I'm eager," Doggett said around a grin. "Quit wasting time and get out of those clothes before I do it for you." 

"I dare you," Mulder said. He hadn't yet undone more than two buttons on his shirt. His fingers lingered on the placket teasingly, as if trying to decide whether to open the third. 

"Just remember, you asked for it," Doggett said. The memory of their other times together drove him on, the sweet, sweaty athletics and even better, the times afterwards when he could let himself rest securely in Mulder's arms and for a moment, not have to the big, strong man. He could be just another human, in the arms of another human. 

Doggett grabbed Mulder's shirt and pulled him close with it. That, apparently, was Mulder's cue to start devouring Doggett's mouth. Thus distracted, it was hard to pay proper attention to unbuttoning that shirt carefully. He tried for slipping them carefully out of their holes, but on a couple of them, they just popped off the shirt and flew in all directions around the beige, impersonal hotel room. 

"Sorry," Doggett said, reclaiming his mouth just long enough to talk. 

"I saw a sewing kit in the dresser," Mulder said. "Now, be quiet, man, and get on with it." 

After that, what could he do but as he was asked. He relaxed into the flow of it, wondering as he always did how it was that each pleasure spurred the next and then the next. Mulder's joyful response to one stroke inspiring him to the next. 

It was always the best he'd ever had, with Mulder like this, both the love and the sheer hormonal excitement. It had yet to get stale or mechanical. He remembered his marriage to Barbara. Even early on, it had fallen into a staid routine. Every other Friday night, once they'd gotten home from their date night. He wasn't really making love to her. He'd been servicing her, just enough so that she wouldn't get unhappy. It was a chore like any other around the house. Perhaps a trifle less enjoyable than mowing the lawn. He'd always thought something was wrong with him, some crucial part of his makeup was flawed, that he didn't enjoy sex. One drunken night after the divorce, in a bar that he'd stumbled into drunk already, a bar that he didn't realize was the 'wrong' kind of bar, he'd had the revelation. It had been like magic at first, the pleasure that a man could give him, even just the relief that nothing was wrong with his sex drive, just the location he'd been trying to take it to, had been enough to buoy him through what would have been an impossible time in his life. After that, there'd been many, many nights of hard anonymous bodies separated only by a condom and an emotional gulf a million miles wide. He never even got beyond a first name with any of those men. And it had left him feeling just as empty as his Friday nights with Barb had, in the end. 

Only with this gorgeous, wondrous man, he had the affection and the magic. Until Mulder, Doggett never thought of himself as a romantic. But now he knew how far to the heights that love could take a man. There was still a basic conflict with his nature. The romantic struggled hard with the stoic. Every time he wanted to shout out his love to the whole world, an invisible, internal hand was clamped across his mouth. He tried though. He did. At first, no peep emerged. But now, he thought that some muffled sound escaped. Perhaps someday. 

What with one gyration and another, he'd ended up under Mulder. Mulder was already throwing back his head, lost for the moment in his own pleasure, his face about to be thrown into love's rictus. But some motion from Doggett seemed to signal him. Instead of losing himself, he opened his eyes, focused them on Doggett. 

The intensity of that focus caught Doggett as strongly as a blow to the gut might have. He gasped and then found he was over the edge, with Fox following close behind. After that, Fox rolled off him and into his arms. 

"I really love you, guy," Fox whispered into the side of Doggett's neck. 

Doggett just grabbed Fox closer to him, holding him in a grip so hard that it would have hurt a woman. Doggett was overwhelmed with that good but empty scoured feeling, like after weeping, or sometimes one felt it after really good sex. Empty not as a barren wasteland, but empty as in room, potential for something new and great to arise. 

* * *

They hadn't been loud. Perhaps someone less sensitive than Monica wouldn't have noticed them at all. The walls of the hotel were thin, but not that thin. She had been asleep already when she'd been woken by a sound. Or so she'd thought. Even though she couldn't hear anything consciously, she knew that John and Fox were making love in the next room. Perhaps it was more than just sound, but her feelings that were alerting her. 

She reached for the TV remote. She searched for some electronic yammering to distract her from the thought. If she let herself drift, like she was trying to invite a dream, she imagined that she could sense them even more strongly. It was an empathy with them, she supposed. Was it John or Fox that she was tuned into? It felt...good and she wanted to immerse herself more fully into it. She didn't, for the first time, feel jealous. Instead, she thought she understood what a precious thing the both of them had found. But she found herself as embarrassed as if she were actually watching them. So rather than letting herself drift into sleep and thus into their private moments, she scanned through the television, searching for a show to capture her attention. 

She wasn't normally a television watcher. There was too much to do. Too much to read and experience. She didn't have the time for a second hand life. Perhaps if she'd been more of a watcher, she could have settled on a channel quickly. As it was, the sickly blue light of the television and the frantic movements of the characters on it made her feel as if she'd wandered into some strange and unwelcoming territory where the motivations of people were just different enough from that of the world she knew to be strongly jarring. 

Finally, she gave up on the television and clicked it off. Nothing from the pair of them. At least the set had done its job, distracting her for just long enough. She was wide awake now. 

Monica was unused to insomnia. She threw herself at sleep like she threw herself at life- with full trust that it would take care of her. It was strange to her to be wandering around in an empty hour when all around her was quiet. Any time before when she'd been up this late, she had, in her own, temporary way, become one of the creatures of the night. Not the monsters that populated it, but one of those that hunted them down. Now, tonight, she was just a woman awake and shivering under the unfamiliar polyester blanket of yet another hotel room. She got up to turn the heat up again. The wall unit was near the window. Some impulse made her peek out between the curtains. 

In one of the gnarled, stunted trees that surrounded the hotel, just outside her window, a flock of smaller birds were settled in for the night. They weren't the ravens of the tracks near the lawyers. They weren't even as big as crows. They might have been grackles or starlings. The orange sodium glow of the parking lot lights gave insufficient illumination for her to tell. She suppressed an instinct to open the window and throw things at them until they scattered. Or even just to beat on the window until they did the same. Despite her inaction, they all stirred, calling out their raucous cry. Some of them hopped skywards, flying for a few brief wing beats until settling on a different branch or on one in a nearby tree. 

There was a knock on the door. Monica grabbed her robe and answered the door. She cautiously opened it just a crack. It was Dana. 

Dana in purple pajamas that made her look like a little girl. "I'm sorry," she said. "I hope I didn't wake you. I couldn't sleep. There's a flock of birds outside the window. It makes me nervous, but I can't say why." 

"I wasn't sleeping either," Monica said. She opened the door completely. "Come in. It is creepy. Like we're being watched." 

Dana came into the door and Monica suppressed an urge to hug the smaller woman, because she looked so vulnerable and even tinier than her petite frame actually was. 

"It's ridiculous," Dana said as she sat down on the bed that Monica hadn't been sleeping in. "They're just birds." 

Monica thought about the files she'd read. About the body partially picked clean. Just birds had done that. Monica felt ire rising from the pit of her stomach. Anger that she should be terrorized in her own hotel room like this. 

"There has to be some intelligence behind them," Monica said. "Directing them. Some source of malice. And we will find it." 

"Did you know if Mulder and John have made it back to the hotel?" Dana asked. 

"Yes. They're back," Monica said. She thought of the feelings, of her empathy with their lovemaking, of the sour-sweet mixture of jealousy and knowing the rightness of it all. 

"Once, on a night like this, I'd knock on Mulder's door. He'd be up. He was always up. Now I'd hate to bother him if he was.... busy." 

Monica wanted to say that they weren't making love. But she couldn't explain to Dana how she knew. And she suspected that seeing Mulder in John's arms, even if they weren't actively making love would be just as disheartening to Dana. Monica didn't know what to say, so she just shook her head slowly. Dana would understand what she meant. 

"It's better for them this way, isn't it?" Dana asked. "All I ever wanted for Mulder was for him to be happy. Finding his sister didn't do it. Finding the truth didn't do it. Finding John did." 

"Yes, I think it is better. For them at least," Monica said. Hard, cold truths were always easier to face in the presence of a friend. 

* * *

In the car on the way to visit Jane Glinka, Doggett went over the details of the auto accidents with Monica. The first claim, paid in full by the insurance agency that Ivan Acosta worked for, was straightforward. Alix Choudhury, first year medical resident was speeding home down Cicero Ave, after just having come off an extended on-call period. It sounded like she might have gone nearly forty-eight hours without a wink of sleep. She ran a stop light and crashed into the car driven by Ludmilla Mojoski. Choudhury's SUV flipped and she was killed, dead by the time EMTs reached her, but not officially pronounced until the emergency room. 

Mojoski's car continued some fifty feet down the street, though there was some debate about how much Mojoski was in control of it. Mojoski had been legally intoxicated at the time and injured by the first accident. The short side street the car had been travelling down dead ended. At the base of the cul-de-sac was the Milhaus, a bar and grill. Mojoski's car plowed over a barrier and right through the plate glass window, killing only two, because it wasn't yet open for the day. The two killed were waitress Luisa Carrera and her young daughter Brittany Hernandez. Carrera lingered in a coma for a few days, but the girl died on site, while in the care of the EMTs. 

Mojoski was uninsured. Survivors had attempted to claim damages from Choudhury's insurance but were denied because a police report submitted by John Loren made it clear to them that this was a separate accident. The fact that Mojoski's car traveled that far after its collision with Choudhury was a deciding factor. When the claim had been denied, the survivors had sued the insurance company for damages, retaining the services of Jane Glinka. And again, they lost. 

"And the next month, the first death happened," Doggett concluded. "We have a motive. We can follow the money. Basic cop work from this point." 

He liked that, when something could be tied up neatly and tidily into something that could be pinned down to basic human motives. Not greed, though you could often find that in cases where there was insurance money to be had. No, Doggett thought for sure that this was just revenge. 

Just revenge, no matter the means. 

* * *

Monica was startled first by the birdsong, mostly just by how loud it was. In every tree around Jane Glinka's snug little bungalow, birds perched, hopped and cried out. There were hundreds of them, maybe over a thousand. Their chatter was raucous. Weirdly like a circus come to town. 

"How do we know she's here and not at the office already?" John asked. 

Monica looked up and around her, at all the birds. 

"Point taken," John said. 

"Besides, it's only nine and I found out from Villareal that Glinka never comes in before ten thirty, unless she's got a court date. Supposedly, she's fairly good at what she does, but she's just not driven. It's what keeps her there and not in a big firm probably. 

Glinka's house was a typical Chicago style bungalow, long and narrow box on a narrow lot. Made out of red brick, with white trim, it was one story, but there was enough pitch to the roof that somebody might throw some dormers up on the roof and make it into a story and a half. All of the neighboring houses had signs of occupation by children- sleds left out, swing sets glimpsed in the back yard. Valentine hearts already taped up in the window. Glinka lived alone though. No valentine hearts for her. 

Monica rang her bell several times before the woman appeared, dressed in a robe, her hair wet as if from the shower. Her eyes widened slightly, then closed narrowly when she realized that it wasn't some Jehovah's Witnesses that could be sent packing, but people that she would have to talk to and deal with. 

"You're the people from the FBI," she said flatly. 

"Can we come in and ask you a few questions?" Monica asked. 

"This isn't a good time," Glinka said. She shivered in her terry robe and wrapped her tiny arms around herself. 

"We can wait until you get dressed," Monica said. "But it's important that you tell us anything you know about the case of Hernandez vs. Liberty Mutual." 

Glinka shivered again, and Monica felt sorry for her. The head dropped and Glinka's face was hidden behind a limp curtain of damp mousy hair. It was shame and guilt. And that drop hadn't happened quickly enough for Monica to miss the way that the attorney's face went pale, almost gray with guilt. "I botched it," Glinka said. "From start to finish. I took on too much, too many cases, and I thought I could coast it through court." 

She'd trailed off, then stood away from the door so they could enter. Monica entered, John close at her heels. Both the small entry way and the living room beyond seemed curiously bare. Yes, there was the expected couch in front of a television set, but the walls themselves were completely bare, except for empty display shelves. Here and there Monica could see the "ghost" of where a picture had been hung on the wall. Had she gotten rid of a bird collection at home as well? 

"I promised those poor people so much. Probably too much," Glinka said. She gestured vaguely at the sofa. Monica supposed that she meant for them to sit down. That was a good sign. She intended to spill what as she knew. 

"I've been expecting you," she said as Monica took a seat on the squishy Lazyboy couch. "Esre called me again and again. She must have left me five messages about you." 

"What can you tell about the case or about the accident?" Monica asked, feeling sympathetic towards the small woman. Glinka was making those kind of nervous half gestures and fidgets that Monica recognized well. The woman was an ex-smoker and wanted nothing more than to light up right now. Monica understood. Under stress, no matter how many years it had been since you quit, you still wanted one. Monica was feeling like she wanted one herself, even though it'd been two smoke free years. 

"It was a terrible accident," Glinka said. "The kind that manages to make it into the paper even these days. Neither of the drivers should have been behind the wheel. Ms. Choudhury might have been legally sober, but she was just as impaired from tiredness as if she'd drunk two six packs. She was driving over sixty where the speed limit was forty. Mrs. Mojoski did drink two six packs. She was driving not just without insurance, but with a suspended license and on probation for DUI. The case never got a chance to go to trial, but Mojoski was charged with vehicular homicide because of this accident. " 

John nodded. He was listening carefully. Monica wasn't paying so much attention to the actual words, but she listened to her intuition, watching where the words took her. 

"We went after the insurance company," Glinka said. "You go where the money is, obviously. The liability was much more obviously belonging to Mojoski, but there was nothing to recover there. This is the thing, the driving force behind the case wasn't Raymond Hernandez, Luisa Carrera's husband and Brittany Hernandez's father, though he was the one who formally filed the suit. It was Tony Amalfi, who owns the Milhaus, the restaurant that was damaged in the collision. He practically dragged Hernandez into my office. And Amalfi wanted me to go after anyone and anything remotely involved- the police department, the EMTs, the doctors in the emergency room and hospital. Choudhury's relatives. Mojoski, even though he knew she was all but penniless. I talked him into what I thought was a reasonable target and I was even sure that I could get the insurance company to settle out of court." 

"But they didn't," Monica supplied after Glinka had been silent for a while. 

"No, they maintained that it was a separate accident and too bad, so sad, but it was caused by someone that wasn't one of those they insured," Glinka said. "I was fairly optimistic that I could turn any reasonably sympathetic jury to a widower who'd lost his oldest child and had two younger to take care of without a mother. Especially against a big, faceless insurance company. I did only a minimum of preparation before court and focused on other cases I had going at the time. 

"And then I went into court and blundered it. They managed to get Mojoski herself to testify. It was a big mess and we lost. If I'd done something about neutralizing Mojoski, getting her testimony thrown out somehow, I still think I could have swung it in our favor." 

She hung her head. Such a pathetic, wrung out, ineffectual little woman. You couldn't, not now, imagine her arguing her way out of a wet paper bag, much less any kind of case in court. Not with her stringy hair and pinched, gaunt face. More than that, she'd been defeated in some essential, emotional way. Any backbone she'd once had had been stomped out of her and Monica thought the woman would never stand tall again. 

"Tell me about this Tony Amalfi," John asked. 

"I don't know that much. Tall, big man. The kind that's overbearing. Has a big mouth, but it's never really himself that he's talking about, so you can't really call him an egocentric bore. I got the feeling, just from how he'd get these little crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he'd talk about her, that he was in love with Luisa Carrera. Though maybe it was unrequited because he was so friendly and even uncle-like to Raymond Hernandez. It just struck me as kind of strange, the way he was always the one pushing, not the widower." 

So, as John had said, revenge as the motive, but what was the means? How did Amalfi call the birds to do his bidding? Was it some witchcraft or was it some kind of supernatural powers? Would arresting the man be enough to stop this? It wasn't usually, not in these kinds of cases. And could they come up with any kind of evidence chain strong enough to even convince a judge of the need for a search warrant? 

Probably not. 

* * *

"How's your mother and William?" Mulder asked Scully as soon as he saw her get off the phone. 

"They're staying with neighbors," Scully said. "They lost power because of the storm and the people across the street didn't. But other than that, they're fine. My mom seems antsy for you to get home." 

No wonder. William was a feisty, active, three year old. Hell on wheels. With attachment issues that were just beginning to rear their heads. The first, second and third adoptive placements hadn't worked out once it became clear that the magnetite injection only had a temporary effect. When Mulder had finally contacted the agency that Scully had gone through, William had been in foster care. They'd been glad to agree that his parental rights had never been abnegated and they easily surrendered William to him. 

He went through childcare providers not quite as fast as he went through packages of pull-ups, but it seemed close sometimes. At least when he traveled, Grandma Scully was willing to watch William. But enough was enough by now probably. 

It was enough to make Mulder wonder if the FBI had a daddy track and if so, how did he get on. He'd already started juggling assets and unhiding money he'd previously hidden, with the goal that soon he wouldn't have to count on his Bureau income for daily expenses. He could quit the bureau, but on his own terms this time, because John was carrying on quite capably, the work of the X-files, what there was left to do. 

"Once we get back, I'm going to tell Kersh I can't travel any more," Mulder said, surprising himself even. Yes, he'd been thinking about it, but only thinking. To hear himself announce it to plainly made it into a plan. A declaration. Something that he had to follow through on. Reality. 

"My mother truly doesn't mind, Mulder," Scully said. "It gives her time to make up for lost time. After all she went through, you can't take that from her. I know I was... weak. But you can't punish my mom for that." 

"Scully," Mulder said. "You did the right thing at the time, given the information you were working with. I would have done the same. I've told you that." 

He truly never blamed her for what she had done. He even felt empathy for the way she was punishing herself by not letting herself be part of her son's life. He tried to ameliorate this by gently drawing her into their lives as much as he could while not becoming coupled with her. 

"Look, if there's snow still when we get back, I'm going to try and take William sledding. You want to come?" 

"I was never much for sledding," she said, frowning, though a slight sparkle in her eyes affirmed that she was pleased by the invitation. 

"How about just the part afterwards. You know, hot chocolate and marshmellows," he said. 

"We'll have to see, Mulder," she said. 

* * *

Monica's phone rang as they left Glinka's house, on the way to try and find Anthony Amalfi. She checked the caller id. 

"Joseph Sessions?" she asked idly before answering, not remembering anyone of that name. 

"Joe the bird guy," John said. "I wonder why he's calling." 

Monica shrugged and answered. 

"Agent Reyes," Joe said. "I've got some more information for you guys on the bird situation. " 

"What new can you tell me?" 

"Given the strangeness of the situation, I was able to round up some helpers. We were able to tranquilize about six more birds with bands and about another six more without. I put small radio transmitters on all of them, so we can track them. And we were able to track down the banded birds to six separate study locations, from as far away as Canada." 

He sounded not just excited, but positively thrilled, as he were at a party or something. You know, Monica thought, it probably was a party for him. 

"No more injuries this time I hope," Monica said, thinking about how John had said that Joe been scratched up really badly last night. She shuddered to think of it. 

"Few minor scratches, nothing bad. We were prepared this time," Joe said. "I was even able to get that thing your Agent Doggett wanted. I hope I didn't destroy any evidence chains or whatever, but in the middle of it seemed like the only time the birds would be distracted enough. I handled it with gloves and wrapped it in a plastic bag." 

"He's got your evidence," Monica said to John. 

"What?" John asked. He'd been paying close attention to making a left turn onto a major road and hadn't been listening to her conversation. 

"Your ceramic object. The one protected by the birds," she said. 

"It's actually a ceramic pie vent, with painted on designs, they look African in origin, though no doubt I can have someone at the university tell me exactly what they are," Joe said. "There's other things stuck to it, like feathers. It looks like there's dried blood on it." 

Monica passed this on to John, who just happened to slam on the brakes as someone made an unexpected left turn in front of him. "Where is he?" John asked as he started the car moving again. 

"Where are you?" she asked. 

"On my way back to the Cicero police station," Joe said. "In my car." 

Monica suddenly realized what the man had. What that object was that the birds had been protecting and why. Her heart raced at the thought of that innocent man in such danger. 

"Stay in your car," she said. "Don't get out for any reason unless you're going right into a building. And once you get there, stay inside with the doors and windows shut." 

"Why?" 

Why? How could she explain it so that he wouldn't question it. If she had learned nothing else over the years, it was that things that she saw as self evident and obvious were dismissed and ridiculed by other, more supposedly sensible people. 

"Hold on!" he said. There was a noise. He must have dropped the phone. Through it, Monica could hear thumps and cracks, as if things were being thrown against the windshield of the man's car. 

"Joe, what's going on?" she asked, knowing it was pointless. 

After a while, he did pick up the phone again and said, "I think I see your point. I seem to be under attack by birds. I've never seen anything like it. It's a bit better now that I'm in motion. It's this thing, isn't it? Somehow, it's got some kind of hold on the birds." 

"We'll meet you at the police station," Monica said. 

All the way there, her heart raced, and she found herself not quite whispering to John to go faster. He was driving as fast as traffic would let him already. 

They pulled into the police station's parking lot not more than nailbiting ten minutes later. A car was pulled up near the entrance. It must be Joe. 

Thousands upon thousands of birds surrounded the big brick building. Their rows filled every power line into the building. Pigeons clustered in big clumps surrounding the ground around the car. Whole clouds of little brown house sparrows buzzed around. Every branch of every tree crowded with just about any kind of bird that Monica could imagine. There was even a squawking, bickering crowd of small green parrots, hundreds of them. And the crows and ravens, dozens of them at a time were throwing themselves at the car. In each of the windows of the station the police officers and support staff of Cicero stared out at the spectacle in the parking lot. But not one of them was trying to help Joe out of the car. 

John parked the car and seemed as he was going to immediately throw open his car door. But he paused. "What's our plan?" 

"We have to get Sessions out of that car and into the building," she said. "And get Amalfi. He's at the center of this. He controls the birds." 

She was shaking, she realized. Her mouth dry. Monica shuddered as she looked at the scene outside, but squared her shoulders. Like anything else, she would face this head on. 

"I'll help Sessions into the police station. You can stay in the car. Then we'll go look for Amalfi," John said. 

"No," Monica said. She reached for the car door and opened it. 

* * *

For the first time, Mulder understood something he'd been told about in history classes, about how when the white man first came to this country, the skies would be dark with birds. That's what this was. Like night, but with peeks and glimpses of the dead white winter sky showing through. 

Mulder pulled up to police station just in time to see John and Monica get out of their car. A swarm of birds descended on them immediately. John beat the birds off, swatting at them with his arms. But Monica just ran even as winged creatures drew blood from her. She reached another car and touched the door. 

Mulder ran into the thick of it, following John's path. Before he'd gone ten feet, he too, was beset upon by winged creatures, their wings beating on him, their beaks stabbing. He sheltered his eyes with his arm and tried not to let his injuries distract him. It would be fatal to let one of them get him in the eyes. If he couldn't see, he'd surely stumble and then their fury would descend on his helpless body. He'd be like one of those corpses in the files in minutes. 

Monica had the car door open and was screaming at the occupant, "Give it to me! Give it to me!" 

A small, black shiny object was passed into her hands. Immediately, she hurled it to the asphalt. It broke, its small sound unheard over the din of bird sound. She stomped on the pieces again and again, not noticing that as soon as the first break had been made, the birds had started to scatter. In minutes, none of them were there except for a flock of small, bright green parrots that squabbled amongst themselves in the tree branches. 

Blood ran down Monica's face and she collapsed down onto her knees on the pavement, right onto the shards of pottery that she'd just made. 

Mulder didn't reach her first, nor did John even. No, the man who reached her first in time to prevent her from falling completely to her face was the short, stocky ornithologist. He pulled her to her feet and steadied her. What surprised Mulder wasn't so much how quick the short man was on his feet or how strong he was, but the smile on his face and the shine in his eyes as he looked at Monica. 

"Let's get you to some help," he said to her. "I think you just saved my life, you know." 

"Any time," she said, woosily. Her head lolled a little, then she was able to hold it up straight. "You like those...creatures?" 

"They're not normally like that," Sessions said. 

He helped her over to a metal bench near a walkway and sat her down. He held her upright, with an arm around her back until an ambulance came and took Monica away in the usual fluster of gurney and equipment. Until then, the pair of them talked quietly to each other, so softly that Mulder couldn't hear. 

"We need to get Amalfi," John said as soon as the EMTs arrived. He'd been oddly reserved since Sessions had picked Monica up off her knees. Perhaps he'd seen and interpreted something in that look Sessions was giving Monica. 

"Do we have an address on Amalfi?" Mulder asked. 

"Yeah," John said gruffly, turning first towards his rental car, but then to watch Monica being loaded into the ambulance. Scully ended up going in the ambulance with Monica. 

Sessions walked back to his car to follow the ambulance, but first he stopped by John. 

"That's the woman I'm going to marry," he said. 

The expression on John's face was an odd melange: part of it a Spanish Inquisitor would have been proud of- giving the interloper the hairy eyeball, so to speak. Part of it was jealousy. Part of it was relief. And part of him seemed to want to smile and congratulate the guy. 

"I can pass a criminal background test and basic credit check. I understand," Sessions said to John. "If she were my partner I'd be giving me the hairy eyeball too." 

"I'm her partner, not her big brother," John said, after a moment of puzzlement. "If you can talk her into it, you have my blessing. But she's not an easy woman to push around or to talk into or out of anything." 

* * *

Doggett chuckled as he thought of the strangeness of the little man all but asking him for Monica's hand in marriage. 

As if Mulder were reading his mind, he asked, "You think the guy has a snowball's chance in hell with her?" 

"I think his chances are better than Frohike's would have been, but not much," Doggett said. "Maybe if she weren't afraid of birds." 

They were travelling to Amalfi's address together. Doggett was driving, Mulder the passenger. They passed a huge train yard, one that was a loading yard for truck containers, because they were stacked tall, towering over the chain-link fence. Around here, the small white drifts of yesterday's snow had already been packed into gray and black crusts on the margins of the streets. The streets were gritty and dry. 

Every now and then, a bird would fly across the sky. But there were just the right kinds numbers of them. Few enough to seem like random. Only the one or two of them. 

They were past the train yard in a moment and into a neighborhood of small bungalows, mostly tidy, but some with the shabbiness of long needed repairs. Doggett stopped at the right one. Not far away, a big, black Cadillac was parked. Doggett suddenly remembered something Monica had gotten out of Roy Rathskeller. That on the morning the first body was found, he'd seen a big, black Cadillac near the office, one that he didn't recognize but that didn't normally belong in the neighborhood. 

The house was the oddball of the neighborhood, not one of the tiny, boxy houses, but a large Victorian on a double lot with a huge, winter bare tree in the middle of the double lot. The ornate gingerbread had been stripped away in favor of plain aluminum siding in washed out blue, but the form was unmistakable under the skin. 

If the birds had scattered from around the police station, surely many of them must have come to roost here. Crows filled the trees of the neighborhood, cawing and calling to each other. 

They got out of the car and climbed the porch together. Doggett felt in his pocket for the remnants of the... whatever it had been. Totemic object, Fox had called it, as he'd been gathering the bits off the pavement. It was now enclosed in a plastic evidence bag. It was doubtful that it'd give them any useful information, like prints, but it just might spur a little spilling of information out of Amalfi. 

After much ringing, the door was answered by a bear of a man, tall, broad in belly and shoulders. Almost all of his bare skin was covered with black hair, except for his face, which looked recently scraped with a razor. He glared belligerently through the security screen door. 

"I'm not buying anything," he said. 

"That's good, because we're not selling anything, Mr. Amalfi," Mulder said. "Can we come in and ask you a few questions?" 

"I'm Agent John Doggett," Doggett said. "This is Agent Mulder. We're with the FBI. If we could just have a few minutes of your time." 

"You got a warrant?" Amalfi asked. 

"We're not here to conduct a search of the premises," Mulder said, smoothly. "We were just hoping to have a few questions answered. Here on the porch is fine." 

"I know my rights. I don't have to talk to you unless you got a search warrant," Amalfi said. He reached for the door to shut it. 

"I was wondering what you could tell me about this," Doggett said, pulling the bag of pottery shards out of his pocket. 

The guy's eyes opened wide for a moment, but closed narrow. He knew. Dollars to donuts, he knew exactly what it was and how it got to that crime scene. "I don't know what that is. Broken is what it is." 

"It's a pottery pie vent. An attorney you retained, Jane Glinka, collected them. She found one missing from her office after a visit from you one day. There's blood on it. Plenty enough for a DNA test. It was found at a crime scene." 

"I don't know anything about that," Amalfi said. But then he pushed the security screen door open hard and fast. Hard enough to knock Fox right into Doggett, throwing them both off their feet. The guy wasn't just built like a football player. He must have been one, because he plowed through both Fox and Doggett like they weren't even there. Fox was up on his feet more quickly, but Doggett had his gun out of his holster first. 

"Hold it right there," he said. 

By then, Amalfi had made it to the Caddy and gotten it open. The man kept a gun under the driver's seat, just a .38, a little snub nosed thing. Amalfi got off a wild shot before Doggett could cry out. 

The next shot was his. Not exactly carefully considered, but by some miracle, it found its target, Amalfi's shoulder. He hated having to use his weapon, as much as he understood the necessity of it. He suppressed his wince as he saw Amalfi blown back by it, thrown against the Caddie. 

When he saw Fox lying face down in a puddle of dripping red, behind him on the porch, he could easily have emptied the whole clip into Amalfi. Fox groaned. Not dead. Not yet. Doggett gathered his self control and holstered his weapon. There was backup to call. Help to get. He kneeled down in the blood next to Fox. 

Fox lifted his head up as if he was going to try to sit up. He grimaced, obviously thinking better of it. He laid back down and closed his eyes. Doggett thought he might be losing consciousness, but then Fox spoke. 

"Love you," Fox said. "Want you to know." 

"I know," Doggett said. "Help's on it's way. I love you." 

* * *

Damned Amalfi must have gotten him the exact same spot Scully had, those many years ago. From his comparatively broad experience on the subject, he'd have to say that getting shot in the shoulder, while certainly better than most places you could be shot in, really didn't have anything to recommend it. They were already weaning him off the really good drugs and he ached all over, with shooting burning pains coming from the gunshot wound itself. 

He thought about calling the nurse and bugging her for something better, something that fit into the controlled substance category. Maybe some nice narcotics. 

Then John walked in, Monica at his side. She still had the pirate patch over her eye, but last Mulder had heard, it should heal, that she wouldn't lose the sight of it. Her other dressings were gone, leaving the network of stitches that crossed her face in view. The swelling had gone down a lot too. She'd be fine soon, probably hardly any scars even. 

"Any luck with that botanica that Amalfi claimed to find the woman who placed the curse?" Mulder asked. For what it had been worth, they'd gotten a confession out of Amalfi, including the details of how the curse had been placed. 

"Not a bit," John said, with a rueful smile, as if he hadn't expected anything else. "First they wouldn't admit to knowing any English. Then when Monica questioned them in Spanish, they didn't know a thing." 

"The woman claimed that of course she would work a spell, but only good spells, for love, success, luck," Monica added. "We didn't find anything other than the usual sort of thing you'd find in a botanica. Statues of the Virgin of Guadeloupe, candles. John the Conqueror's root." 

"So, Amalfi's confession is more or less useless," Mulder said. 

"They'll nail him for shooting you as hard as they can, but that's about all we're going to be able to do," John said. "They're definitely talking attempted murder, not just assault." 

"And the birds?" Mulder asked, thinking of the tremendous flocks of them. 

"The numbers in this area are back to normal, according to Joe," Monica said. "No sign of ravens. The ones that they put transmitters on have already gone home." 

"And the Cicero police department?" 

"They're calling the whole thing a freakish act of God. Animal attacks without provocation. Closing out the cases," John said. "They weren't exactly happy with that though. Any idea when they're going to spring you from this joint?" 

"Hopefully soon," Mulder said. 

"Good," John said. "As soon as you get home, I'm going to take some of my saved up vacation time. You're going to need some help getting around." 

Mulder liked the thought of that, even as he didn't think he'd need any assistance. Still, think of the potential- sponge baths, being pampered, playing doctor. Then John spoiled the illusion of naughty fun by adding, "And you'll need help taking care of your son." 

Monica's phone rang and she looked at the caller's id, then scampered out into the hall to take the call. 

"Donuts to dollars, it's Joe again," John said. 

"No," Mulder said, in disbelief. Not such a little man like the ornithologist and such a beautiful woman as Monica. A tall, beautiful woman. She must have been an easy five inches taller than him. 

"He took her out to breakfast this morning and I don't think he had to drive here from Hyde Park to do it," John said. 

"Stranger things have happened," Mulder mused. 

"And I've investigated most of them," John said. 

* * *

From the warmth of the running car, Dana Scully watched the pair sledding, the big boy and the little boy. It was just a little hill but from between the legs of the big boy, William clapped his hands and threw up his little arms with joy. She couldn't hear the squeals of happiness as they went down again, but she imagined them. John looked like he was having as much fun as William. 

She clutched the Valentine heart in her hand, clumsily cut out of pink construction paper with blobs of white doily glued on at random places. Made just for her, she'd been assured. She treasured every gluey smudge and rough cut. 

Mulder was sitting in the car beside her, watching the sledding avidly. His shoulder would still be taped up underneath his clothes. He held it stiffly and even moved his whole body stiffly, but he didn't complain about the pain. He never did. 

"Think we should make them come in yet?" Mulder asked her. 

"No, not yet," Scully said, leaning her cheek against the frigid window glass. Life, she was startled to discover, despite everything, was good. Very good. "They're having too much fun." 

* * *

The nursery rhyme provided by Frankie was 

Sing a song of sixpence 

Sing a song of sixpence,  
A pocket full of rye;  
Four and twenty blackbirds  
Baked in a pie.  
When the pie was opened,  
They all began to sing.  
Now, wasn't that a dainty dish  
To set before the King? 

The King was in his countinghouse,  
Counting out his money;  
The Queen was in the parlor  
Eating bread and honey.  
The maid was in the garden,  
Hanging out the clothes.  
Along there came a big black bird  
And snipped off her nose!  
  

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Rose Campion


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